Illinois Delegates Split Over Platform

``Think about what`s going on and come back home and be Republicans,``

Ryan pleaded with members of his state`s delegation at a luncheon gathering Monday. ``Don`t be part-time Republicans. Come and vote the Republican ticket. We have to stick together.``

It was an unusual request to make of partisans spending the time, money and effort to attend a national convention, but this has been-and promises to remain-an extraordinary political year.

Illinois, which has voted for every winning candidate for the last 100 years except for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Woodrow Wilson in 1916, is a must-win state in the fall. But in his national landslide 1988 victory,

President Bush carried Illinois with just a fraction over half the vote, his slimmest margin of victory in any state.

Now, with both the economy and Bush`s popularity in sorry shape from Alton to Zion, and with underdog Senate candidate Richard Williamson joining him atop the ticket, the state and its 85-member convention delegation is the focus of attention again.

Delegates-the activists who are expected to return home this week to pump up the troops for the fall campaign-are split over the conservative GOP platform, chiefly on the abortion issue. And several aren`t convinced yet that Williamson can overtake Democrat Carol Moseley Braun.

Reflecting on the apprehension in the room she had just left, Labor Secretary Lynn Martin said: ``Right now, I`m glad the election isn`t being held tomorrow. If the president loses Illinois? It will make it harder for him to win re-election.``

A former member of Congress from Rockford who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1990 and was Illinois co-chair for Bush`s campaign four years ago, Martin was the featured attraction at the delegation`s luncheon. As with every other event at the Doubletree Hotel headquarters since Sunday, an ABC-TV camera crew was on hand to record it for Monday night`s edition of

``Nightline`` focusing on the Illinois delegation.

``It is the 20 Electoral College votes. It is Illinois, the bellwether. Illinois, the part of every state. Illinois, the quintessential American place. It`s all those things, plus it`s a state where politics are taken very seriously,`` said Martin, a former member of Congress from Rockford who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1990, and was Illinois co-chair for Bush`s campaign four years ago explaining the importance of the state and its delegation.

To underscore the middle-American states` status as a microcosm of the nation, the delegation was profiled on ABC-TV`s ``Nightline`` in a video diary format that reflected its divergent views on the Republican platform`s anti-abortion plank and its unified support of the Bush administration`s policy toward Iraq.

Titled ``One Day in Houston,`` the profile prominently featured Gov. Jim Edgar`s speaking role at the convention`s evening session and the governor`s belief that the media was looking for contention within the delegation that he believed did not exist.

The final assessment by ``Nightline`` host Ted Koppel was that after Day One of the convention optimism surfaced after weeks of doubt.

So it was that Ryan singled out the single-interest voters for a grandfatherly admonition-his forte in recent election years.

``Those Republicans that feel they absolutely can`t support our entire ticket, I make the plea to rethink that position and to support the entire ticket,`` Ryan said. He was referring to Republicans, mainly women, who crossed over to vote for Braun in the Democratic primary and to abortion-rights advocates opposed to Bush`s anti-abortion stance.

``There`s a lot more at stake,`` he said, ``than any single issue that we care about as Republicans.``

State Sen. Aldo DeAngelis of Olympia Fields sounded worried.

``If there is a trickle-down factor because of the lack of enthusiasm, that will definitely lower Republican turnout,`` he said. DeAngelis and other legislative candidates are counting on the higher turnout typical in presidential election years because Republicans tend to cast straight-ticket ballots.

Former Gov. James Thompson sounded a more upbeat note.

``I don`t think they think it`s lost,`` he said of his fellow delegates.

``I haven`t heard anybody say that. I think they have a great deal of apprehension, and I think they want to come out of here united, even though there are contentious issues on the social side that divide a lot of Republicans.``

``But I think they will be willing to put those aside if they get a clarion call from the president on the issues that voters really think about when they wake up in the morning-their jobs, their mortgage and the future for their kids.

``The president has to speak to those issues very strongly on Thursday and for the balance of the campaign. If we get that sense coming out of here Thursday night, then I think we`re on the way back.``